As someone who knew both Alex and one of the victims, I have to say that this is just an awful situation. 20/20 hindsight is never helpful, but typically accurate. Yeah, I feel safe in saying that Alex definitely suffered from some sort of mental illness with this in mind. Up to this point of time, he just seemed like a weird dude. Quirky, maybe? He was a good guy. Did a lot of work on our property cutting trees. Always a pleasure to work with. Even came over a few times for some social events. Just always pegged him as weird. Seeing this now (and the Dr Phil video which I had no idea of), it all makes sense. But I guess that wisdom is the ability to see this stuff before it happens, right? As for the female victim, she was such a good person. Just genuinely good. I think that our temptation is to divide the world into black and white. It makes things so much easier to process. Like the good guys. Hate the bad guys. It's simple. Read some Rene Girard. The need for a scapegoat is built in to us. It's really tough when something like this happens. When someone who is a victim (of fate? circumstances? evolution? determinism?) victimizes another out of their own suffering. Most of us don't have the tools to deal with that. So we resort to some sort of dichotomy. Some sort of tribalism. The absurdity of reality is too much much for the human condition. Hence why Huysmans had it right at "the end of life ends with either the barrel of gun in our mouth or at the foot of the cross".
